by Mel McGrath
Honor says, ‘It’s a year since we were last all together on the boat. Can you believe that?’
‘It’s like everything in the meantime happened to another Satnam.’
Honor observes Satnam and Nevis lock eyes, their lips curling upwards, new lives already evident in their smiles.
After the fire and the incident in Leigh Woods, Honor and Nevis went back up to London to recover. But sooner than they anticipated, Nevis missed Bristol and Satnam, Honor missed Alex and after a week on the canal in Hackney, they decided to make the journey to Bristol in the Kingfisher, tie up a while, until they figured out what was next.
Satnam says to Nevis, ‘Will you miss being a student?’
‘Perhaps, if I have the time to think about it much.’
Honor will see to it that she doesn’t. She has signed on for a winter berth on the Montgomery canal on the Welsh Marches where she and Nevis will stay busy during the cold and dark months giving the Kingfisher a facelift, and also a change of name to the Wise Owl. When spring arrives Nevis will head off to her placement at the bird sanctuary at Hermaness. She’ll spend the summer on Unst, monitoring the guillemot breeding season. After that, who knows? Perhaps one day she might even return to her studies.
Satnam says, ‘I’m going to miss Bristol but I’ll be back to visit Luke.’ Tomorrow, Satnam is going back to live with her parents and begin a law degree at Birmingham University. Despite the official apology from the new Vice Chancellor of Avon along with the offer of a place to study law, it has been an easy decision. ‘Biochem was what I thought I should study. But the law is my passion,’ she’d told them. There is a lesson there.
Bikram and Narinder have been very supportive of their daughter’s decision. It appears that, at the prospect of a lawyer in the family, Satnam’s parents have decided marriage can wait. Love, though, has a timetable all its own. Luke is staying on at Avon to finish his degree, but it’s not far from here to Birmingham and, as Satnam says, there will be visits.
‘We’ll keep in touch, won’t we?’ Satnam says to Nevis now.
‘All the time, forever,’ Nevis says.
A calm ease slides across the room. Outside a party of ducks quarrel on the bankside. After a few minutes Alex, who has been checking the tide tables, breaks the silence.
‘We’ll need to get under motor again soon.’ They’ve been waiting for the tide to start coming in. It’ll make the journey out a little trickier but there’ll be less of a risk of being swept out to sea.
It is nearly six months since the incident on the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Satnam isn’t ready, yet, to step back onto the span over the gorge and may never be. But the counsellor she’s been seeing has suggested going under it might help close the circle. Besides which, it’ll be a chance to remember Jessica and scatter flowers on the water where she fell. No one they know went to her funeral, nor to Tash’s either. Both happened far away, in their home towns and their parents either didn’t think to or chose not to invite Satnam. She understands that. It would take some time to deal with the residual shame of what had happened with Mulholland but she would get there. Her guilty sense of having been the catalyst for the deaths of Jessica and Tash was more deep-seated though. That might never quite go away.
Alex stands and waits for Honor to finish her lemonade.
‘You need help, Mum?’ asks Nevis.
‘Nah, it’s OK. Alex and I have got this.’
She waits while Alex sidles by, tipping a friendly wink, and moving towards the stern hatchway. She follows on, stopping to fire up the engine. The Wise Owl, as she thinks of it now, shivers into life and starts to growl. Engine in neutral, she goes up on deck, pausing momentarily to register the change in weight distribution as Alex steps off onto the bank. They’d tied up facing against the ebb tide and now the water’s coming in again the bow will have to be turned round, a simple manoeuvre, one Honor prefers to do herself. She looks out across the soupy brown water, gauging its speed and depth, listening out for Alex to call her to catch the ropes. Her mind drifts until she’s brought to her senses by Alex, saying, ‘Anything wrong?’
Turning to face him. ‘No, no. Ducks taking off is all. This year’s crop, all grown up already. A little miracle to watch them fly.’
She turns away from the channel towards the bank as Alex swings the ropes and waits for them to get airborne so she can catch them as they fall.
Waiting for him to step back on board she gestures to the tiller. ‘You hold this a moment while I draw up the anchor?’
‘Oh sure. Listen, Honor, I didn’t like to say in front of Nevis, but I read in the local paper that Mulholland’s wife had her baby. A little boy.’
‘Yeah, I saw that,’ Honor says, busying herself with the anchor chain.
‘You planning to tell Nevis?’
‘Soon, yes. She’s got a half-brother out there, she has a right to know.’
‘Something else. An old contact in the news business rang and asked me to write a long piece.’
‘About?’ She watches the anchor appear from the water.
‘About how a child prodigy became a rapist and got away with what he did because he was brilliant and an asset to an ancient institution which valued its reputation over the welfare of youngsters in their charge. I’ll keep Zoe’s and Satnam’s and Nevis’s names out of it. I’ll write about how institutions continue to turn a blind eye to the Mulhollands and Reynolds of this world, and the folk who cover for them. Young women and men at the start of their lives are still dying of shame because they have run out of hope, because they can’t see a way forward, because they don’t think they’ll be believed.’
The riverbank throws up a green smell. Ahead of them the distant span of the Clifton Suspension Bridge glints in the sunlight. ‘That’ll be a powerful piece.’
She stands, brushes a fallen leaf from her trousers, and, going over to him, pushes her fingers into the spaces between his. He eyes her watchfully. For a minute nothing seems to move, then he says, ‘I was thinking of taking the Helene cruising in the spring, maybe I’ll make it as far as the Welsh Marches.’
‘I’d like that.’ She puts the engine into gear and steers the boat into the channel.
Not long afterwards they are motoring into the shadow cast by the bridge. Everyone is on deck now, Alex and Honor taking turns at the tiller and the two girls, faces to the sun, talking. Honor watches them and smiles to herself. Nevis does talk these days, or more than she used to, anyway.
Not far from the bridge, Nevis stands and makes her way alone towards them.
‘Hey, Alex, would you mind going to the bow and sitting with Satnam? She doesn’t want to be alone when we go under the bridge.’
Alex stands and, doing his best to cover his surprise, says, ‘Wouldn’t she rather you be there with her?’
Nevis shakes her head. ‘She already asked me once, remember? She thinks that’s enough for anyone. And I agree.’
Nevis waits for Alex to move then takes his place beside her mother. Together they watch Alex’s back swaying as he makes his way along deck. A companionable silence falls between them, broken by Nevis.
‘If the Dean hadn’t jumped, Mum, would you have pushed him?’
Honor takes a while to think about this.
‘No. I wanted to, but I wouldn’t have shot him either.’
‘Why?’
‘It would have played right into his hands. Mulholland didn’t care about his own life. He only cared about stopping me living mine. And besides which, he was your father.’ Turning to her daughter, she says, ‘Would you have pulled the trigger?’
‘And let him determine the course of the rest of my life? Absolutely not.’
A flock of Canada geese whirrs by, underwings in shadow, the stragglers honking encouragement to those ahead of them, burdened by the keen edge of the wind. Bewitched, Honor and Nevis watch the birds as they sail in V formation high above the bridge and grow smaller as they near the sea, disappearing at last.
/> The fast, brown water chops around the boat. The engine hums and churns. Up at the bow, Satnam leans on Alex, her body small and shrunken, clasping firmly in her fingers the white lilies she will scatter at the spot where Jessica fell.
Nevis reaches for Honor’s hand and, squeezing it, says, ‘I think I see why you didn’t tell me about him before. I wish you had, Mum. I wish you had told me years ago. But I understand.’
‘Thank you,’ Honor says, her eyes burning. ‘Take the tiller now, darling. Take us wherever you want to go.’
Author note
Two Wrongs is a work of fiction. Avon, Midland and St Olaf’s universities are invented institutions. The characters and events in this novel are imagined. Any resemblance to any real-life person, event or institution is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who worked on this book with special mention to the dedicated teams at HQ and HarperCollins, Rogers, Coleridge & White and Sayle Screen, and to booksellers (especially the indies) everywhere. Emily Kitchin, you are a dream to work with. Thank you to Jeremy White and Lynn Keane for being there. And a very big thank you to readers, bloggers and book enthusiasts. You make everything possible.
Gripped by Two Wrongs? Then don’t miss out on more dark and suspenseful psychological thrillers from Mel McGrath – available to buy now.
The Guilty Party
Give Me the Child
Turn the page for an exclusive extract from the gripping and shocking psychological thriller from bestselling author, Mel McGrath…
1
Cassie
2.30 a.m., Sunday 14 August, Wapping
I’m going to take you back to the summer’s evening near the end of my friendship with Anna, Bo and Dex.
Until that day, the eve of my thirty-second birthday, we had been indivisible; our bond the kind that lasts a lifetime. Afterwards, when everything began to fall apart, I came to understand that the ties between us had always carried the seeds of rottenness and destruction, and that the life we shared was anything but normal. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I think I had probably known this for years, but it took what happened late that night in August for me to begin to be able to put the pieces together. Why had I failed to acknowledge the truth for so long? Was it loneliness, or was I in love with an idea of friendship that I could not bear to let go? Perhaps I was simply a coward? One day, it might become clearer to me. Perhaps it will become clear to you, once I have taken you back there, to that time and that place. And when I am done with the story, when everything has been explained and the secrets are finally out, I will ask you what you would have done. Because that’s what I really want to know.
What would you have done?
Picture this scene: a Sunday morning in the early hours at a music festival in Wapping, East London. Most of the ticket holders have already left, and the organisers are clearing up now – stewards checking the mobile toilets, litter pickers working their grab hooks in the floodlights. Anna, Bo, Dex and I are lying side-by-side on the grass near the main stage, our limbs stiffening from all the dancing, staring at the marble eye of a supermoon and drinking in this late hour of our youth. None of us speaks but we don’t have to. We are wondering how many more hazy early mornings we will spend alone together. How much more dancing will there be? And how soon will it be before nights like these are gone forever?
At last, Bo says, ‘Maybe we should go on to a club or back to yours, Dex. You’re nearest.’
Dex says this won’t work; Gav is back tonight and he’ll kick off about the noise.
We’re all sitting up now, dusting the night from our clothes. In the distance I spot a security guard heading our way. ‘I vote we go to Bo’s. What is it, ten minutes in an Uber?’
Anna has spotted the guard too and jumps onto her feet, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms.
‘I’ve got literally zero booze,’ Bo says. ‘Plus the cleaner didn’t come this week so there’s, like, a bazillion pizza boxes everywhere.’
With one eye on the guard, Anna says, ‘How’s about we all just go home then?’
And that’s exactly what we should have done.
Home. A long night-tube ride to Tottenham and the shitty flat I share with four semi-strangers. The place with the peeling veneer flooring, the mouldy fridge cheese and the toothbrushes lined up on a bathroom shelf rimmed with limescale.
‘Will you guys see out my birthday with one last beer?’
Because it is my birthday, and it’s almost warm, and the supermoon is casting its weird, otherworldly light, and if we walk a few metres to the south the Thames will open up to us and there, overlooking the wonder that is London, there will be a chance for me to forget the bad thing I have done, at least until tomorrow.
At that moment the security guard approaches and asks us to leave the festival grounds.
‘Won’t the pubs be closed?’ asks Anna, as we begin to make our way towards the exit. She wants to go home to her lovely husband and her beautiful baby, and to her perfect house and her dazzling life.
But it’s my birthday, and it’s almost warm, and if Anna calls it a day, there’s a good chance Bo and Dex will too and I will be alone.
‘There’s a corner shop just down the road. I’m buying.’
Anna hesitates for a moment, then relenting, says, ‘Maybe one quick beer, then.’
In my mind I’ve played this moment over and over, sensing, as if I were now looking down on the scene as an observer, the note of desperation in my offer, the urgent desire to block out the drab thump of my guilty conscience. These are things I failed to understand back then. There is so much I didn’t see. And now that I do, it’s too late.
Anna accompanies me and we agree to meet the boys by Wapping Old Stairs, where the alleyway gives onto the river walk, so we can drink our beers against the backdrop of the water. At the shop, I’m careful not to show the cashier or Anna the contents of my bag.
Moments later, we’re back out on the street, and I’m carrying a four pack but, when Anna and I reach the appointed spot, Bo and Dex aren’t there. Thinking they must have walked some short distance along the river path we call and, when there’s no answer, head off after them.
On the walkway, the black chop of the river slaps against the brickwork, but there’s no sign of Bo or Dex.
‘Where did the boys go?’ asks Anna, turning her head and peering along the walkway.
‘They’ll turn up,’ I say, watching the supermoon sliding slowly through a yellow cloud.
‘It’s a bit creepy here,’ Anna says.
‘This is where we said we’d meet, so…’
We send texts, we call. When there’s no response we sit on the steps beside the water, drink our beers and swap stories of the evening, doing our best to seem unconcerned, neither wanting to be the first to sound the alarm. After all, we’ve been losing each other on and off all night. Patchy signals, batteries run down, battery packs mislaid, meeting points misunderstood. I tell Anna the boys have probably gone for a piss somewhere. Maybe they’ve bumped into someone we know. Bo is always so casual about these things and Dex takes his cues from Bo. All the same, in some dark corner of my mind a tick-tick of disquiet is beginning to build.
It’s growing cold now and the red hairs on Anna’s arms are tiny soldiers standing to attention.
‘Shall we call it a day?’ she says, giving me one of her fragile smiles.
I sling an arm over her shoulder. ‘Do you want to?’
‘Not really, but you know, we’ve lost the boys and … husbands, babies.’
And so we stand up and brushing ourselves down, turn back down the alley towards Wapping High Street, and that’s when it happens. A yelp followed by a shout and the sound of racing feet. Anna’s body tenses. A few feet ahead of us a dozen men burst round the corner into Wapping High Street and come hurtling towards us, some facing front, others sliding crabwise, one eye on whatever’s behind them, clutching bottles, sticks, a p
iece of drainpipe and bristling with hostility. A blade catches the light of a street lamp. We’re surrounded now by a press of drunk and angry men and women. From somewhere close blue lights begin to flash.
‘We need to get out of here,’ hisses Anna, her skinny hand gripping my arm.
They say a person’s destiny is all just a matter of timing. A single second can change the course of a life. It can make your wildest dreams come true or leave you with questions for which there will never be any answers. What if I had not done what I did earlier that night? And what if, instead of using the excuse of another beer to test the loyalty of my friends and reassure myself that, in spite of what had happened earlier that night, I couldn’t be all bad, I had been less selfish and done what the others wanted and gone home? Would this have changed anything?
‘Come on,’ I say, taking Anna’s hand and with that we jostle our way across the human tide, heading for the north side of the high street but we’re hardly half way across the road when we find ourselves separated by a press of people surging towards the tube. Anna reaches out an arm but is swept forwards away from me. I do my best to follow, ducking and pushing through the throng but it’s no good. The momentum of the crowd pushes me outwards towards the far side of the road. The last I see of Anna she is making a phone sign with her hand, then I am alone, hemmed in on one side by a group of staggering drunks and on the other by a blank wall far too high to attempt to scale.
Moments later, the crowd gives a great heave, a space opens up ahead and I dive into it, ducking under arms and sliding between backs and bellies and a few moments later find myself out of the crush and at the gates of St John’s churchyard, light-headed, bruised and with my right hand aching from where I’ve clutched at my bag, but otherwise unhurt. I feel for my phone and, checking to make sure no one’s looking, use the phone torch to check inside the bag. In my head I am making a bargain with God. Let me get out of here and I will try harder to believe in you. Also, I will find a way to make right what I have done. Not now, not right away, but soon. Now I just want to get home.
